Wake up call for Canada

Dear Gerald,

I read with interest your article in the SPIN. May I offer my two cents of opinion on the subject?   

First I must admit I agree with many points you made. For example, there is no need in 21st century to fly over the world to demonstrate support for climate change action. I totally agree that televised video-conference would be not only more efficient but also more effective. A great example of this approach I witnessed at the Green Buildings Council Conference in Vancouver last year where Cisco technology (which was one of the sponsors of the Conference) allowed to connect live audiences from Portland Oregon, Germany (forgot the city) and Shanghai China with Vancouver over the gigantic wall screens. 
  

I would leave the discussion of the level of urgency on the climate change aside for time being – but I hope we agree that both so called “green” side and its opponents (should we call it “black” for oil?) have their agenda and political lobbies. Either side is supported and promoted by various sectors of industry and because of that they have more in common than different. They all want to build mega-gigantic projects – economy of scale of course – be it a wind farm, a solar power plant the kind you mention in your article, a hydroelectric dam nuclear power plant or any other. 
   

Any technology has its hurdles. And any large-scale projects create large-scale problems. Wind turbines kill birds and bats (by the way, encasing them in the “housing” will significantly reduce turbine's efficiency so this is not a good option). Solar plants expropriate large areas of land and contribute to the grid instability. Hydro dams flood huge areas and disturb regional ecosystems (Site C comes to mind). Fukushima disaster reminded again of potential dangers of nuclear meltdown. 
   

But keep being reliant on fossil fuels – be it oil or natural gas - is not an alternative. “Business as usual” is an equivalent of stagnation at best, and in a world moving forward with a fast pace it is a guarantee to be left behind. The statement that fossil fuels are “wonderfully efficient, abundant throughout the world’s crust and will not go away” is extremely misleading. If a definition of efficiency is simply "being cheap” in a short run, then I want to know a long-term cost. "Abundance" is a very relative notion. Distribution of fossil fuels around the planet is very uneven – this is why some parts of it have to bring them from the other side of the globe spending lots of the same fossil fuel on the way. “Will not go away” doesn’t even fit common sense. All natural resources are finite, and in the case of fossil fuels the rate of their extraction exceeds the rate of their natural generation by thousands times - this is the fact which will not go away. Don’t forget oil is used not only for fuel – all plastics, paints, a lot of cosmetics and number of other products are derived from oil. While we may change our estimates of when the so called “oil peak” occurs, new methods of the natural resources extraction can only accelerate the rate of their depletion. They are also becoming more costly, which eats into the so called “efficiency” of fossil fuels. Alternative technologies, particularly solar PV and solar thermal, at the same time are becoming less expensive and more efficient in terms of their performance. 
  

Cost of one alternative versus another deserves more discussion. Even if one would wave away an indirect cost of a long-term consequences of a greenhouse effect and global warming - which although would be not wise but it is in the human nature to think what would happen later - he or she can hardly do the same about the health affecting air, ground and water pollution. And what about after-cost of unavoidable equipment failures and human errors? Shall we recount events like oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, derailment in Lac-Megantic, an explosion at pump station in Saskatchewan and barely avoided another disaster with the Russian cargo ship which lost power near the British Columbia coast? 

Risking of falling victim of the overused (and may be over-politicized) term “sustainability” I need to say few words about it. Any system – technical, economical, biological or social – consists of a number of components. In very general terms, sustainability is a system’s ability to remain in balance over extended period of time without need for external resources or energy. In other word’s it is a measure of a system’s stability. It is a lesson of generations of engineers that the more complex system is – i.e. consisting of a larger number of components – the less stable it is.

One of the most familiar and relevant examples of a complex system is a power grid, consisting of a large number of energy producers (typically power plants), even a bigger number of all sorts and sizes energy consumers (from residential homes to institutions and industry) and an extremely tight and interconnected energy transmission and distribution network including under and above ground power lines, substations and many other. In a centralized grid all components are highly inter-dependent, which on numerous occasions was demonstrated by big blackouts, recently in Calgary. Residents of Sun Peaks are very well familiar with the consequences of a drunk driver hitting a power pole. Several hours in darkness, and often in cold during the winter is not fun to say the least!

Take another example, from a subject which became touchy recently – distribution of oil and natural gas over pipelines. Complex, expensive, subject of environmental concerns and political disagreements, their short-term benefits are unstable. As with any resources, demand for Canadian oil is highly dependent on an unpredictable international business and political environment. Pipeline like the Northern Gateway is an easy target for terrorists’ attacks and political manipulation. Take example of Russia using its natural gas supply as a tool for political pressure on Ukraine and not too subtly - on Western Europe. Bet on China is a very risky gamble. For one, Russia will easily and happily overflow it with much cheaper oil and gas than Canada can ever afford to offer. US is already resisting Canadian oil – not only they have enough of its own but they are steadily moving away from oil dependency. 
     

I hear you asking - what is the alternative? Glad to oblige. I am not a supporter of government mandated or subsidized technologies, but I strongly think we need a long-term sustainable national energy strategy based on the System Approach and Real Options methodology.

Decentralized energy system should be very seriously considered. Continuous progress in solar, particularly solar thermal technologies in combination with air and ground source active heat exchange, as well as in in energy storage technologies including fuel cells and phase-change thermal accumulators, makes a self-sufficient house or a building a real possibility. We are talking about more than “net-zero” building where more energy produced than consumed at some periods of time but it needs to draw energy from the grid at other times averaging to about zero over the year. We are talking about a building as a self-sufficient system. Passive design, energy conservation measures and new highly thermoresistant materials in combination with ultra-efficient lights, appliances and electronic equipment significantly lower energy demand. Equipped with on-site renewable energy generation, heat recovery, water recycling. No more blackouts or freezing while waiting for a power to be restored. Individual houses are connected in an “intelligent network”. A further evolution of a “smart grid”, it is a sort of an “energy cloud” in which all nodes are independent from each other but can combine the power when needed.  
     

The projects like Northern Gateway and alike take an enormous amount of financial and intellectual resources which could not be used elsewhere. The more we invested in these the more difficult it will be to change the course later. It is more than likely that much higher return on investment in 30 to 50 years of projected lifetime would be achieved if invested in the research of new technologies. This would have more than economical and environmental benefits but also decide on which way Canada would be moving in the future – slide to a backward resource dependent state or move toward the advanced technological society. And if the government still wants to build something large across the country I have a proposal - high-speed train connecting Canadian West and East Coast. It works for Japan, Taiwan and Korea - why it shouldn't in Canada? 
  

Performance Home, Part 2

Picture a hole in the side of your house that’s just as a big as a typical computer screen. Imagine the wind blowing through that hole. The hole is real. If you were to combine all the cracks and crannies in a typical Canadian home, they’d add up to almost 1,400 square centimetres, roughly the size of 2.5 magazine pages.

Plugging that hole is the simplest way for Canada to save energy. Plugging the hole also saves money, creates jobs, cuts greenhouse-gas emissions and makes our homes more comfortable.

We know how to find the hole. Canadians pioneered the use of a tool that can measure the airtightness of a building. Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has used this “blower door” to test more than 800,000 Canadian homes.

Canadians also know how to fix the hole. Way back in 1977, they built a house so airtight and so well insulated that a hair dryer could have kept it warm through the winter – in cold Saskatchewan.

Yet despite the fact that buildings account for roughly one-third of our national energy consumption and the fact that we’re world leaders in small building energy-conservation technology, Canadians still haven’t plugged the hole. Most of our existing homes remain quite drafty, and most of our new homes fail to meet decades-old efficiency standards.

Builders have long known that heat claims the lion’s share of the energy consumed in Canadian homes: 57% of the total, compared with 24% for hot water, 13% for appliances and 5% for lighting. They’ve also known that heat escapes wherever air escapes, mostly under doors and around windows.
A standard measurement agreed upon is: the number of times per hour the blowerdoor fan would suck all the air out of a house at a prescribed pressure of 50 pascals (Pa). The metric is called “air changes per hour (ACH)” at 50 Pa. With gaps totaling 1,400 sq. cm, the average Canadian home leaks enough air to result in 6.85 ACH@50Pa.

In the wake of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the Saskatchewan Research Council designed an energy-efficient home appropriate for the Saskatchewan winter. The oil crisis prompted many similar projects, with most focusing on new ways to trap solar heat within a more or less standard building. The Saskatchewan team elected, instead, to design a radically more efficient building envelope. The Saskatchewan Conservation House, completed in Regina in 1977, was likely one of the first buildings to combine three key elements: superinsulation, extreme airtightness and a heat-recovery ventilator.
In an era when nearly all houses were constructed of four-inch-thick walls filled with R-8 insulation, the two-storey Saskatchewan house featured 12-inch-thick R-40 walls and R-60 roof insulation. Likewise, single-paned windows were then the norm; this home had triple-glazed windows. The house also boasted extreme airtightness. Most new houses at the time scored in the range of 9 ACH@50Pa; the SCH achieved 0.8 ACH@50Pa. At the time it was likely the tightest house in the world.
To provide fresh air to the airtight house, the Saskatchewan team built an air-to-air heat exchanger. This device pulled in fresh (but cold) outdoor air through a series of baffles. Stale (but warm) indoor air was pushed out through the other side of those same baffles, and heat was transferred from the exhaust air to the incoming fresh air.
The SCH had no furnace. Instead, it relied on a system that collected solar heat during the day, stored it in a water tank, then released the heat at night. All told, the house required less than a quarter of the energy consumed by a standard home of the time.

That same year, the “House As a System” approach pioneered in Saskatchewan formed the basis for a new national building standard that required R-20 insulation, blower-door test results of 1.5 ACH@50Pa or better, the installation of a heat-recovery ventilator and the use of non-toxic materials. The new standard became a partnership between NRCan and the Canadian Home Builders’ Association. It was the toughest standard in the world at that time and presaged by decades the advent of green building initiatives such as BuiltGreen or LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The new standard was voluntary, but its authors intended for its gradual integration into the national building code. With their sights set on plugging the hole in Canadian homes by the turn of the century, they named the new standard “R-2000.”

The above content is mostly a shortened re-print of the article High-Performance Homes - Why isn't Canada spearheading the movement to build more sustainable homes? published in June 2012 issue of Canadian Geographic.

Performance Home, Part 1

Those who have been following my postings undoubtedly noticed that I am trying to avoid using such terms like "sustainable", "green" or even "eco-friendly". Instead I prefer talking about the "performance home" or "performance building" (sometimes also called "high-performance building"). It is probably time finally to find out what is a Performance Home.
Is it a something like a sphere, which everybody familiar with thermodynamics knows is the most efficient shape? 

Is it a shiny futuristic glass cube, which is usually much more functional ?

Is it a house stuffed with all sorts of techno-gadgets?

Or, it is a some sort of combination? May be, but not necessarily. One has to look at the performance house as a system, which it undoubtedly is. Then one must recognize that it - as any system - consists from many smaller systems (structure, insulation, ventilation, heating and cooling, water supply, electrical etc) constituting the whole, and in turn is a part of a bigger urban system, community, natural environment etc.  Then it will be obvious that performance home to be built in Sun Peaks Resort on elevation of 2,400 m would be totally different from the one to be built in Saudi Arabia.
     

Old "New" Challenge for performance buildings, or Lessons Learned - Part 3

Monitoring data in Performance Building proves to be a challenge for a reason, which may seem unexpected. There is no clear understanding on what data to collect, at which points, how often to take the measurements and for how long to store the data.
One approach is a "bulldozer" approach - take as many data as possible, at as many locations as possible and as frequent as possible. From the first glance this seems to be a bullet proof method - you will never miss anything. In fact, the opposite is true. The amount of data collected quickly becomes overwhelming and unmanageable, and apart from the difficulty of retrieving necessary piece of information, it presents another unexpected challenge. The value of storing the data is in ability to keep track of historical records, because only a relatively long period of time can be representative for the actual performance of any complex system, performance building included. Now, an attempt to estimate what would it take to create a data storage for one such building, utilizing the "bulldozer" approach described above, hits an obstacle - the data warehouse for keeping track of ALL data will cost over $400,000 !!  No wonder, it is decided, or rather occurs automatically, that the wast amount of accumulated data is discarded after a relatively short period of time to let the room for the new batch of data. But what about the analysis?
What if we need the data for more than one month, and typically we want to monitor performance for at least a year? How can we even be assured that what we need is there, when what is collected spills over?
Following up on and consistent with what I have discussed previously (see e.g. Lessons Learned - Part 2)  there is a need in the agreed upon hierarchy of the data sets, common format of data being collected, stored and retrieved. With the time it may and probably will evolve into the industry standard. But the work needs to be started, or we are going to face the hurdle not unlike or even worse than the Tower of Babylon - not only being unable to speak one language, but not even understand ourselves... 

In order to be able to communicate we need to speak one language.

Performance Home designs presented at the Council

From October 2012 through April 2013 Ascent Systems Technologies in cooperation with Architecture and Technology Department of Thompson Rivers University conducted a students’ contest for the best design of the performance home for Sun Peaks Resort. 20 actual vacant Sun Peaks lots were chosen by the students. The competition was completed in April when Ascent Systems Technologies presented a cash prize for the best performance home design, while Sun Peaks Corporation supported the initiative by donating two ski passes to the author of the design which was the best accommodating the resort guidelines. Some of the best designs were presented at the Sun Peaks Municipal Council meeting at on June 24, 2013. The purpose was to show to the Council and to the residents the home built at Sun Peaks Resort can be energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and at the same time seamlessly integrated in the overall look of the resort. The presentation was received with great interest. 

Performance homes, together with other efforts undertaken by the Sun Peaks Municipality, will form part of the Sustainable Community concept at the Resort.   

Green Home designs for local landscapes

CaGBC Conference: Lessons Learned - Part 1

Back from the Canadian Green Building Council Conference in Vancouver.

From the large number of presentations, speeches and exhibits one conclusion jumps out:
everyone and everything is focused on commercial buildings - business office, hotel etc. 
NO ONE IS LOOKING AT THE SMALL RESIDENTIAL SECTOR  as if doesn't exist !

Of course, it is much easier to get noticed with a "green" high-rise tower in the downtown of a big urban centre than with a performance home in a rural community. But should we forget not - more than 90% of Canadian territory is not cities. Even if the majority of Canadian population is concentrated in the cities, it is not where our food, oil, gas, gold, lumber and other resources come from. Canadian economy heavily relies on the natural resources industry. Shouldn't we pay special attention to efficiency and sustainability of homes for people living there?

Perhaps not everyone knows, but tourism is a second largest contributor into Canadian economy. It should not be too surprising however, taking into account that Canada is the world's second largest country by territory with a vast geographical diversity, number of resorts and national parks. The importance of this sector is even growing with increasing popularity of heli-tourism, eco-tourism etc.   

Hence the niche of a single-family or small-to-medium size multifamily residential market with the smaller non-residential facilities like local schools, heath care centres, sport facilities etc, seems to be undeservedly abandoned.

The Performance Model Home concept attempts to address this deficiency.
Attractive architectural design, high-level of thermal efficiency, air-tightness, passive components like natural day lighting, combined with the efficient, cost-effective and non-polluting technology managed by a simple, reliable and user-friendly control system are all necessary elements of such a model. Add the maintainability, ability to service and upgrade or add system components (for example, with the new technologies as they become available), capability to continuously monitor and optimize performance - and you will have a perfect case for a System Architecture.     

At the core of the technology package are three components: optimized solar thermal system, supplemented by thermal booster and supported by a high-efficiency thermal storage.
The entire package is configured using ASPA program, allowing to choose the most efficient combination of the components. These components together with sensors and energy meters included in the feedback loop and integrated with performance home management system, at any time providing the maximum comfort for inhabitants of the home and the most efficient use of the equipment.  

Performance Home design contest is a success

Ascent Systems Technologies in collaboration with Architecture & Technology Department of Thomson Rivers University in Kamloops conducted a contest of the students projects for the best performance home at Sun Peaks.

A number of different and interesting designs were presented for the contest.

 

Architecture Instructor of the class Dale Parkes announces the winners of the contest from the Sun Peaks Corporation.

The winner of the First Prize from Ascent Systems Technologies for the best Performance Home Design, Joe Dion-Croteau

Performance Home Design Contest Update

Sun Peaks Resort Municipality is offering an opportunity for the author(s) of the selected Performance Home to have an opportunity to present their design to the Council and the public.

Sun Peaks Resort Corporation donated two ski passes to the authors of the designs best fitting into the Tyrolean style of the Sun Peaks Resort while satisfying the code and the guidelines.

Ascent - TRU Performance Home Design Contest

Ascent Systems Technologies in collaboration with Architecture and Technology Department at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops is announcing a prize for the best design of a performance home for Sun Peaks Resort.

Sun Peaks Resort is a mountain village in the Interior British Columbia, Canada with some of the best snow in North America. Long recognized for some of the best ski conditions in Canada, Sun Peaks Resort attracts a growing number of skiers and snowboarders each winter with its champagne powder and wide variety of terrain. It is also one of the youngest and is the first Mountain Resort Municipality in Canada.

Sun Peaks is rapidly becoming a place of choice for people who want invest in both in some of the finest pieces of real estate and an active lifestyle.  Its mountain conditions however present a challenge for an architect and a builder. Steep elevations with trees, wide range of temperatures, from +25C in summer to -30C in winter, large amount of snowfall, and the absence of "cheap" natural gas all require for a special approach to design and construction. At the same time, it offers a great opportunity to try new ideas ! More than 2000 hours of sunshine a year, clean air void of any industrial pollution ask for utilizing some of the most abundant and non-exhaustible resources - energy of sun.  There are number of technologies and ways to improve energy efficiency of the mountain home.

The best performance home award will be given to the design which will be not only energy efficient, but also functional, have distinct style, be easily accessible, allow for maintainability, expandability and upgrade for future emerging technologies.   If you would like to sponsor students competition, please contact Vladimir: VG@ascentdevelopments.ca